Destiny 2 Sturm and Drang quest: How to complete every Relics of the Golden Age quest step

Sturm and Drang in Destiny 2 are a special pair of weapons you can unlock as part of a post-game questline in Destiny 2.

The Drang is a Legendary sidearm that kicks off a quest to unlock the Sturm, an Exotic Hand Cannon.

As well as aesthetically looking similar, they share perks that compliment the other; the Sturm reloads your Energy weapon upon a kill, while the Drang will reload the Sturm when you get a kill with that - in theory meaning you can swap between the two and never have to reload at all. Pretty nifty, eh?

If you're interested in other elusive weapons and armour, see our Destiny 2 Exotics list for what else is available and how to unlock them.

It's also worth noting undertaking this quest is one of the few ways to help you reach the Destiny 2 max level cap since it scales with whatever level you currently are. The prior link explains more, but the longer you wait to do the quest, the higher level the weapon will become.

How to get the Sturm and Drang

Similar to certain Exotic weapons of the first game, unlocking the Sturm and Drang requires a number of specific steps. In brief, they are:

Complete the main story and all follow-up Nessus story missions to get the Drang

Decrypt Legendary Engrams, a Exotic Engram and use the Drang to defeat Fallen enemies

Use the Drang to defeat powerful Fallen enemies, as well as regular Fallen enemies without reloading

Getting the Destiny 2 Sturm quest and Drang quest step-by-step

It's worth noting there are some spoilers for the end-game below, so read on at your own risk.

First of all, complete Destiny 2's main set of campaign missions and reach level 20. Doing so will unlock another series of quests on each planet.

Turn your attention to Nessus, and complete the Exodus Black series of missions. There's quite a few, and upon completing the last, My Captain, you will receive the Drang. Lovely stuff.

That's not all; you'll also receive a quest item in your Kinetic weapons slot, which asks you to talk to the Cryptach - so go and do that in the Tower.

This will then become the Relics of the Golden Age quest item. This will have three objectives:

Objective 1: Decrypt Legendary Engrams (out of 5)

Objective 2: Decrypt Exotic Engrams (out of 1)

Objective 3: Defeat Fallen on Nessus with Drang (out of 10)

Remember the above steps can be completed while doing any other activity, so feel free to do other missions and events while keeping these in mind.

This is probably wise when it comes to Engrams, which are almost entirely based on luck (though you can get Faction rewards to count towards the first objective).

Upon completion of all three, you need to visit the Cryptarch, who will direct you to Tyra Karn at The Farm. Doing so will transform it into a second Relics of the Golden Age item, with two more objectives both on Nessus:

Two Fallen enemies counts as multiple here, so just do a couple, reload, take out another couple and repeat.

Powerful Fallen, meanwhile, is any Fallen enemy with yellow health (and is usually named). You also need to get the final kill (not someone in your Fireteam) for it to count.

If you want to zip through this second step very quickly, then replaying the Exodus Siege Adventure (situated to the south of the Exodus Black zone) will see you come face-to-face with a yellow-bar Fallen within moments of starting. Do this ten times and the objective is complete.

This video by Ryan Rockwell shows the process in action:

Once done, you'll need to visit Tyra Karn again once done for the final Relics of the Golden Age quest step, which has you complete a special version of the Exodus Crash Strike on Nessus and destroy a Servitor named Kendricks-7.

Go to Nessus on the map, and go to the Relics of the Golden Age mission, and follow the prompts. The game recommends taking a Fireteam with you and a power level of 140 (though you can easily complete it solo at the right Power level - thanks to reader kmosesltd for the tip) and requires a few pulse-related activities as well as defeating the aforementioned Servitor enemy towards the end in the penultimate dark room.

Once done, there is last objective - to go back to Tyra Karn at The Farm. She will then give you a the Golden Age Engram, which decrypts into the Sturm at last. Enjoy!

As a recap, these are two weapons that compliment each other with their unique reloading perks. The Sturm will reload your Energy weapon upon a kill, while the Drang will reload the Sturm when you get a kill with that - in theory meaning you can swap between the two and never have to reload at all.

Of course, the Sturm's perk means any Energy weapon will reload with a kill, so you could pair it with a preferred secondary firearm of your choice.

It'll be interesting to see how the meta shakes out this pair of weapons - individually or together - in the coming days and weeks when the community gets its collective hands on it.

Matthew is Eurogamer’s Guides Editor, responsible for walkthroughs, tips and other helpful things. When not doing that, he's probably out and about collecting StreetPasses. Follow him on Twitter at @crazyreyn.